Here are a few of those details:
Contra dance is a type of American social dancing with roots in English, Scottish, and Irish traditions. It goes back to the Colonial period; many of our founding fathers and mothers, most notably George and Martha Washington, did contra dance.
The basic formation, called a set, is two long lines of couples with partners standing across from each other. A caller teaches the figures of each dance before it begins, then prompts the dancers the first several times through the dance.
Couples dance the figures with the couple next to them. They then leave that couple and move to the next couple in the set, repeating the same figures with the new couple. This progression from one couple to the next is repeated several times over the span of the dance so that each couple and each person dances with everyone else in their set—and the sets can be the length of the hall.
No lessons are required, as each individual dance is taught before it begins. Plus, there are only about 20 moves to learn, most of them very simple.
We always dance to live music. There is simply no substitute for the energy of a live band and for the interplay between the musicians and the dancers.
The environment is smoke-free, alcohol-free, fragrance-free, safe, and family-friendly. This is a community dance, similar to the barn dances of bygone days.
